21 Things You May Not Know about The Indian Act

Finished April 3
21 Things You May Not Know about The Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality by Bob Joseph

I took my time reading this as I wanted to think about some of the things outlined here more deeply. There are so many things to be ashamed of about this piece of legislation. It was a way that the government reneged on the nation to nation agreements that had been agreed upon in the treaties, and tried to separate the people from their culture. In spite of saying they wanted to have the native people adapt they constricted them from accessing the markets available to other Canadian, separated families, and tried to prevent people from talking amongst themselves.
Everything done under the Act was done against the indigenous people, not for them, and when others tried to speak out about the wrongs being done, they were silences as well.
I think all Canadians should read this and think about how they would feel if they were the ones subjected to this Act.

Montaigne in Barn Boots

Finished April 1
Montaigne in Barn Boots: An Amateur Ambles through Philosophy by Michael Perry

In this book Perry talks about his discover of Montaigne's writings, his affinity for many of his musings, and his own take on the philosophical ideas in Montaigne's work. This is an intensely personal book, as he talks about his own moments of doubt and his worries.
I've always enjoyed Perry's books, and this was no exception.
Perry has read Montaigne in translation, but also read many of the critical works about both Montaigne himself and his writings. He cites some of these ideas in his nine essays, as he delves deeper into the ideas of Montaigne.
His essay titles here illustrate the way he brings his own life into the ideas. In the first Reading Like a Chicken, where he talks about pecking his way around Montaigne gives us a glimpse into his approach to his philosophical reading. In Roughneck Intersectionality, he talks about the differences in background between himself and the philosopher and the things they have in common. In Confound the Fool, he talks about the unending quest for understanding human nature. In Shame, he reveals his own angst and failures around expectations and outcomes. In Marriage, he talks about Montaigne's unusual relationship with his wife, and his own marital dynamics. In Amateur Aesthetics he talks about his own cultural influences, the subjective nature of beauty, and about the importance of context. He says

I am free to savor six kale chips and an episode of It's Okay to Be Smart then dive into a tub of Costco Cheese Balls and a four-hour Reno 911 binge-watch. "I now, and I anon, are two several persons," Montaigne once said, the upshot being, the "other people" necessary to achieve the cosmopolitan state of generative tension required for aesthetic fruition sometimes reside within the same body.

something I can definitely relate to. In Kidney Stone Wisdom, he compares Montaigne's experiences with the plague of kidney stones, and his own. While Montaigne talks about his ongoing experiences as a chance to strengthen his character before witnesses, Perry summarizes his less dignified response to the experience and expands it to include other bodily frailties more evident with age, and how some of these have provided edifying lessons.
In Meditating on Faith, Perry discusses his own experiences with religion, meditation and yoga. From his fundamentalist Christian upbringing to his introduction, via his wife, to yoga and meditation, he shows his questioning nature. He talks about the struggles with monkey mind, yet how

Whether it is due to having been raised in a large family or just general wiring, I am able to withdraw deep into my head in nearly all circumstances. As a shy person I sometimes go into public to write, which may seem counterintuitive but in fact self-consciousness is a catalyst for withdrawal. The presence of strangers compels me to lower the louvers and focus directly in on the task at hand.

He ends with What to Do, a summary of what he takes away from reading Montaigne. He says,

It seems that somewhere around my current life stage, people make one of two moves: Some stiffen, dig in their heels, and attempt to block the future; others reinvigorate life by blending it with the spirit of youth. I hope I will -- and I am working to -- bend toward the second. I am not talking here about the embarrassment of an oldster trying to vibe with the kids. Nor am I talking about abdicating principles. I am talking about offering a hand, opening new doors, and sometimes -- when new blood is best -- stepping aside and standing down. 

An edifying and satisfying read.

Bina

Finished March 26
Bina by Anakana Schofield

This novel is unlike anything I've ever read. I loved the writing and the character right from the stary, and I could barely put it down. I've already talked it up to one of my co-workers.
Bina is the narrator of this tale, writing her thoughts, her warnings, her remarkings on bits of paper she finds around her house, such as the back of receipts. She is talking to the reader, and makes that clear a few times by what she writes. The book is divided into titles sections, some quite short and others very long. The first one, a short one is Warnings and the first page of that makes clear that that is indeed what this is meant to be. The second page of this section has Bina introducing herself, and one of the first things she makes clear is her name. It is pronounced Bye-na, not Bee-na.
This information is followed by an address to the reader

I don't know who you are, or the state of your life. But if you've come all this way here to listen to me, your life will undoubtedly get worse. I'm here to warn you, not to reassure you

Bina repeats herself a lot, wanting to make clear the message that she is trying to get across to the reader, yet still trying not to implicate herself in anything she shouldn't.
As her story gradually becomes more clear, you begin to understand what she has been accused of, and what she has actually done.
I liked her. She is feisty and wants to make sure others don't make the same mistakes she made. She is looking back, recognizing where she made a wrong move, and regretting some of the things she did. Bina is a nice woman, a woman that genuinely cares about people, and that is both her strength and her weakness. She knows that she has been taken advantage of, but isn't sure what she should have done to get out of it, only how she could have not got into it in the first place.
This is a story of people. People like Bina, who care about other people, and people like Eddie, who don't. Bina is a survivor, but one who struggles greatly.
The book has footnotes that are helpful in providing additional explanation, with some reaching back to a previous book by the author that I haven't read, but am now intrigued to.
Her first two warnings are about letting in men into your life. One comes via a ditch, and one comes via a door, and neither one led to good times for Bina.
So that is what the next two sections of the book are Ditch and Door. When Bina needs to think, or escape a situation, her refuge is her bed, or in the Irish language, Leaba, thus the name of the next section. She prepares herself well when she enters her bed, as she is not doing this for the first time in her life. As she herself writes,

When I go to bed, I really go to bed. Alone. All alone. There's no one invited in. There's no one to invite in. The first time I went to bed I didn't get back up for two months. This time I haven't counted. 

The last section, a long one, is Remarkings, and again she is clear about this. She writes

My name is still Bina and these are my remarkings.
Remarkings are different from warnings.
But you will find warnings within the remarkings
If you are careful enough to notice them.
And if you don't, I can't help you.
It's how it has to be.

As you can perhaps tell from the quotes above, the book has bits written in free verse, a nice way to place the words that makes them even more meaningful. Sometimes Bina refers to herself by name as if she is talking about someone else. Other times she talks in first person. There is a lot of beautiful wordplay going on here, and I loved it. I can hear her voice in my head, and I'm listening.

Lying in Wait

Finished March 19
Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent

This psychological suspense novel starts with a crime, the murder of a young woman, but only gradually reveals the motive as we get deeper and deeper into the book. The viewpoint alternates between a few characters. Lydia Fitzsimons is a middle aged woman, who I understood had issues right from the start. She seems a bit detached from the people around her, in her own little world. But she's definitely not stupid, as some of her choices show.
Laurence is her only son, and as the book begins, he is in high school. He's a young man who doesn't fit in well with his peers, and has no real friends. He's overweight, and can be both perceptive and disingenuous. When he does finally make a friend, he chooses someone who is also unpopular, but for very different reasons.
Karen Doyle is a woman raised in very different circumstances. Her family didn't have much, but she was close to her older sister Annie, the rebellious one in the family, and knew her parents cared about her, even if they weren't demonstrative about it.
The two families are drawn together, because the woman that either Lydia or her husband Andrew killed (you're never really quite sure whose action was the final one) was Karen's sister Annie.
As the story develops and time passes, we see the characters in different ways, and I changed how I felt about them as the story unfolded.
An interesting read.

The Woman in the Window

Finished March 18
The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn, read by Ann Marie Lee

This psychological suspense novel had a couple of mysteries going on, one that I guessed fairly early on, and one that surprised me. The main character, the one whose head we are inside, is Anna Fox. She is a woman in her late thirties, a child psychologist, who has undergone some kind of trauma that has caused her to be agoraphobic. This is the first mystery.
Anna lives in a large 4 story house in Harlem. On the ground floor is the entrance, the kitchen and living room, and a small bathroom, painted red. One floor up is her husband's study and her own office, and a storage closet, along with another bathroom. The next floor up has the master bedroom suite, and the top floor has her daughter's bedroom and a spare room. Anna also has a tenant in the basement, David, who's been there a couple of months. The idea to get a tenant came from her psychiatrist, who suggested she give a reduced rent for someone who could help out with small repairs, errands etc.
Anna talks to her estranged husband Ed and young daughter Olivia regularly. She gets groceries including a lot of red wine delivered, and her psychiatrist and physical therapist visit her at home. The remainder of her day is spent online, where she participates in a forus for agoraphobics, ands plays chess, and looking out the windows at the neighbours she can see, and watching noir movies.
Anna uses her camera to zoom in on her neighbour's activities and uses the internet to do some research on them, to find out background information. She really has no other contact with the outside world.
A change occurs when she gets new neighbours in the house across the small park next to her house. The Russells move in and she sees the husband and teenage son on moving day as she looks out. Soon after the son, Ethan, visits with a candle, a gift from his mom, and Anna surprises herself by letting him in and having a nice visit with him. Is it because she misses the previous contact she had with children in her job, because she misses her own daughter? Who knows.
When another chance encounter due to outside actions cause her to meet the woman of the house, she finds she likes her quite a bit, and feels the possibility of a friendship beginning. A second visit by the woman only deepens this feeling.
When she sees a terrible thing happening to the woman in the house across the way, she wants to help. She calls the police, and tries to do more. But the police doubt her story, and her alcoholism, the pills that her doctor has prescribed her for her situation, and her situation have the reader questioning her as well.
How confused is she? What has she seen, and what has she imagined? This is the second mystery. Anna's own questioning and some of her behaviours are erratic and unreliable. She is a well-meaning woman still recovering from a trauma that also has an element of guilt to it. She's been stuck in her house for nearly a year, and the isolation isn't helping.
I liked Anna, and I worried for her, and I wanted her to be okay. The story was well-developed and had its surprising moments, and I enjoyed that as well.

Hum If You Don't Know the Words

Finished March 16
Hum If You Don't Know the Words by Bianca Marais

This novel is set in 1976 and 1977 in Johannesburg, South Africa. There are two main characters that you have narrating the plot. One is a nine year old white English girl, and the other is a middle-aged black woman with a college education.
It gets off to a slow start, but I was soon fully engaged. I'd left this read for my book club until the last minute, but it was no problem reading the whole book in one day.
Robin Conrad is the nine year old child. Her parents have an English background, and her father is a mine supervisor. She is left out of the play activities of the other children in her neighbourhood as they are all of Dutch background. She is also a bit of a tomboy, and would rather play with boys than girls, which the boys definitely want no part of. Robin has a twin sister, Cat, that one only gradually discovers the truth about. This was an interesting aspect of the book and of Robin's character.
When a tragedy befalls Robin's parents, she goes to live with her aunt Edith, who is a flight attendant, and often away for long periods. This obviously won't work well with being responsible for a small child, and it is some time before Edith finds a solution, and she doesn't find it on her own.
Beauty Mbali is a teacher in the Orange Free State. Her husband worked in the mine, but died of work-related disease. She has two sons who live with her, Khwezi who is 13, and Luxolo who is 15. She also has a daughter, Momsa who is 17, and who she has sent to live with her brother in Soweto so that she can go to high school. As the book begins, she has received a letter from her brother saying that her daughter is in danger, and she travels to Johannesburg to see what is happening. But she arrives on the day that black students are holding a peaceful march relating to their curriculum, and the police respond with force. Momsa is missing, and Beauty can't find her. She must stay to search for her, and the best way to do that is to get a job as a servant.
It is this way that the two stories come together.
I liked the diverse characters shown here: Edith, who travels internationally; some of Edith's male friends who are gay; Robin's Dutch neighbours; Robin's parents' black maid, Mable; Edith's neighbours, the Goldman family, who are Jewish; and the caretaker in Edith's apartment building, who is coloured.
As we see Robin work through her grief, and her guilt, and look to do the right thing in her own mind, we also see how the various people around her deal with their life situations.
I really enjoyed this read, and the touches of humour that came through despite the serious plot. My book club members mostly enjoyed these aspects as well.

The Ruin

Finished March 14
The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan

This novel, set in Galway, Ireland is a real page-turner. It is the first in a new series featuring detective Cormac Reilly. The book starts with an event from 1993. Cormac is a young policeman, sent out to respond to what he believes is a domestic incident. He has trouble finding the house, and when he gets there finds a teen girl and a young boy and their dead mother. The radio in his car is broken, and the house has no telephone, so Cormac takes the two children to town to the hospital. He tries to follow up on the case, but isn't given any encouragement by his superiors.
Now, it is twenty years later, and Cormac, recently part of a special ops team, is back in Galway with his partner Emma. The move is partially for Emma's job, but also because Cormac could see that they were going to disband his unit and figured it was a good time to leave. But once back, he is frozen out by most of his colleagues, and put on cold cases.
Meanwhile, a young intern, Aisling, discovers she is pregnant. She knows it is the wrong time to have a baby, that she will lose her chance to become a surgeon if she does. So when she returns home from her hospital shift and lets her boyfriend Jack know about her condition, she also shares the difficulties, which causes him to take time to think as well. When she finds him still gone when she wakes, she isn't sure what to think. Has he taken the news harder than she thought? But then, two police arrive at her door and let her know that they found his body in the river, a suspected suicide.
With everything else going on in her life, this is too much of a shock for Aisling. She's is numb, and not thinking clearly. But there is someone else on the scene who is thinking clearly, and acting on those thoughts. It is Jack's sister Maude, a woman who hasn't been in his life for the last twenty years. And Maude doesn't believe that Jack's death was suicide. And the police aren't interested in her theories.
Cormac becomes involved in the case, when he is asked to look again at the death of the woman he found twenty years ago, Maude and Jack's mother. Did she really die by her own hand as the police thought, or was someone else involved. As Cormac digs into the old case, he finds himself finding that outside influences have effects on investigations, both past and present, and he must make difficult choices.
This is a great series introduction, and I definitely want to read more about Cormac and his colleagues.